f the singular of _physics_ and
_metaphysics_. Several grammarians also quote some examples in which
_physics, metaphysics, politics, optics_, and other similar names of
sciences are used with verbs or pronouns of the singular number; but Dr.
Crombie justly says the plural construction of such words, "is more common,
and more agreeable to analogy."--_On Etym. and Syntax_, p. 27.

[147] "Benjamin Franklin, following the occupation of a compositor in a
printing-office, at a limited weekly _wage_," &c.--_Chambers' Edinburgh
Journal_, No. 232. "WAGE, Wages, hire. The singular number is still
frequently used, though _Dr. Johnson_ thought it obsolete."--_Glossary of
Craven_. 1828.

[148] Our lexicographers generally treat the word _firearms_ as a close
compound that has no singular. But some write it with a hyphen, as
_fire-arms_. In fact the singular is sometimes used, but the way of writing
it is unsettled. Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines a _carbine_ as, "a
small sort of _fire arm_;" Webster has it, "a short gun, or _fire arm_;"
Worcester, "a small _fire-arm_;" Cobb, "a sort of small _firearms_."
Webster uses "_fire-arm_," in defining "_stock_."

[149] "But, soon afterwards, he made a glorious _amend_ for his fault, at
the battle of Plataea."--_Hist. Reader_, p. 48.

[150] "There not _a dreg_ of guilt defiles."--_Watts's Lyrics_, p. 27.

[151] In Young's Night Thoughts, (N. vii, l. 475.) _lee_, the singular of
_lees_, is found; Churchill says, (Gram., p. 211,) "Prior has used _lee_,
as the singular of _lees_;" Webster and Bolles have also both forms in
their dictionaries:--

"Refine, exalt, throw down their poisonous _lee_,
And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss."--_Young_.

[152] "The 'Procrustean bed' has been a myth heretofore; it promises soon
to be _a shamble_ and a slaughterhouse in reality."--_St. Louis Democrat_,
1855.

[153] J. W. Wright remarks, "Some nouns admit of no plural distinctions:
as, _wine, wood_, beer, _sugar, tea, timber, fruit, meat_, goodness,
happiness, and perhaps all nouns ending in _ness_."--_Philos. Gram._, p.
139. If this learned author had been brought up in the _woods_, and had
never read of Murray's "richer _wines_," or heard of Solomon's "dainty
_meats_,"--never chaffered in the market about _sugars_ and _teas_, or read
in Isaiah that "all our _righteousnesses_ are as filthy rags," or avowed,
like Timothy, "a good profession before many _witnesses_,"--he might sti